How Alchemy of Souls went from underdog to fan favourite fantasy historical even though kdramas rarely produce shows in this genre. A video essay. 💛

i really like how unhinged they made jeong su-min in marry my husband. it goes beyond the classic "villain of the story" role.

it adds a lot of depth to her character, because her motivations are difficult to fathom, and the way she reacts to rejection/failure is fascinating. it's that contradiction between not being able to exist without ji-won (she follows her anywhere, like a shadow), and at the same time, trying to dim her light to extinction (which she ends up doing, when ji-won dies in the original timeline.)

honestly, hard to pull off, but the actress is killing it. she plays it like su-min is clinically unwell. if she could swallow ji-won whole to make sure she'll stay hers/stay with her forever, she 100% would.

It's very interesting that queen of tears is playing so hard into the "these characters were born to love each other" notion. It's repeatedly empathised (and although in a comedic vein) by haein and hyunwoo and in their inability to let each other go no matter how hard things get. At the same time with the flashbacks to how they were each other's first loves and how the osts really point to the two of them being the "one" for each other, it really speaks to how much these characters were meant to be in each other's lives, essentially soul mates, destined to be together.

What's refreshing though is that they said okay you two might be soul mates but that doesn't mean your relationship doesn't take work and that you are going to drift so far apart that it's going to feel like love no longer exists between the two of you. They said hey, being destined for each other and having to still put in the effort to make your relationship work are not mutually exclusive and should never be because that's not how the real world works. But hey, put in the effort, talk, listen, learn, and grow and you'll see why you two were born to love each other.

i keep seeing people say ktl never claimed to have a plot as an arguement against haters and i dont mean to alarm anybody but it's a rom-com the relationship between sa rang and won is the plot and so far it's fucking serving im sorry but people complaining about a rom-com focusing on the relationship between the protagonists just need to go watch something else

also. Ji Yong staring straight into the camera during the oath at the graduation ceremony with the music in the back and he is not raising his hand. he is not speaking. and he keeps staring right up until it cuts to black and you know somewhere inside you that the Vigilante has returned when i tell you i got f*cking chills. i am literally shaking rn i got D.P. s1 flashbacks

You know you failed writing a show when you have people cheering and crying for the man villain rather for the hero main character(s).

Why? He's Han Ki-hwan's son. He could've gotten rid of the recording but instead, he gave it to me, saying I could release it if I wanted. / What do you mean? The father and the son are completely different  (random beyond evil scenes 8/?)

He is someone who gets lost if he is caught off guard.

ALCHEMY OF SOULS (2022)

even if I didn't already know that Bumseok (forcing myself to use the korean name to avoid confusion) was going to betray them, I don't think I would've supported their friendship. That relationship had cracks from the very 👏 beginning 👏‼😀

Bryce never understood the fundamentals of a solid relationship. Friendships are not transactional, I do this for you, then you give me love and affection and attention. That's not how it works.

Gray and Stephen (DAMMIT I MEAN SUHO AND SIEUN) bonded because they found a need they were able to fulfill within each other. More importantly, they were willing to help each other, no strings attached. Stephen needed Gray's companionship and Gray needed Stephen's warmth. If Stephen was absent, Gray would worry instead of thinking he was abandoned. If Gray became cold, Step--SUHO WOULD TAKE IT IN STRIDE.

Anyways, Bumseok thought all he needed was money to buy their loyalty. Suho and Sieun never cared about his money; they just wanted him to feel comfortable around them. Unfortuntely, the moment Suho failed to be the perfect friend, Bumseok started turning on him. There is a very thin line between love and hate, and that one mistake of forgetting to follow Bumseok on insta caused Bumseok to dig deeper for more of Suho's faults.

And the really big problem is that he never thought to communicate his feelings. Bumseok does not realize friends aren't mind-readers and a successful friendship is one where there is two-way communication. For example, Suho knew Sieun's parents were mostly absent and thus understood Sieun's loner tendencies. Sieun knows Suho works part time jobs, so he doesn't get upset if Suho falls asleep and misses something they planned.

There was no way for Suho and Sieun to know Bumseok was being abused at home because Bumseok never told them. How was Suho supposed to know he doesn't like being talked down to, and he hates being left out, and all he has are them?

It makes sense that he doesn't understand why he did all those horrible things to Suho. He knows Suho never did anything wrong but he cares about his feelings above anyone else's. He's already abused at home, would it have killed Suho to change his entire personality just a little to accommodate the fact he needs to have his feelings satisfied? He was also angry they would so easily share their time and affection with Young yi even though he was there first. He was there first. They were supposed to be his group of inseparable friends. She ruined everything. It's all her fault.

Well, he knows it's not her fault, but he can't very well blame himself. He was abused at home so to him, he's always the victim in every situation no matter what. Anything he does, he believes he's within his right to do as the victim. He only sent people to beat up Suho because Suho hurt him first. Suho hurt him by not following him back. Suho hurt him by not choosing him over Young yi. Suho hurt him by acting like everything was okay and that their arguments were no big deal.

Suho is straight forward, no nonsense, what happens in Vegas stays there. Sieun is more than fine with that, but Bumseok never was. Everything always had to reach its logical conclusion: with everyone knowing their roles in his trauma (even though HE DOESN'T COMMUNICATE HIS TRAUMA), he'd get a heartfelt apology and in return, he'd keep spending money on them and they'd give him love.

But Suho doesn't really apologize to anyone (not even Sieun) so that friendship was never going to work out, was it.

same exact energy part 2

Okay a little bit of a rant, triggered by Revenge of Others : people need to stop seeing gay couples as BL. I've been seeing this comment about Wonseok and Sejin too much. They are not "BL", this is REPRESENTATION. Gay couples (and Sapphic too of course, anything) should exist in dramas, not just in BLs. Normalize having a gay couple in your het drama. I've seen people saying they would drop the drama because they are not into BLs. It's literally just any other couple. They are here for two minutes in the drama. Force people to see gay couples outside of BLs and GLs. Normalize it.

Something that really got me was when Hae In was crying about the baby how she immediately just blames herself with the "you have no right to cry". She instantly defaults to self hate when a lot happens but it manifests to others around her as being cold and distant and downright mean and i feel like that says a lot.

9 characters I loved in 2023

tagged by @jaebeomtual (hi miha 💜)

song kang as jeong guwon in my demon (2023-2024) ✧ kim bum as lee rang in tale of the nine tailed (2020) ✧ yun ji on as im ryung gu in tomorrow (2022) ✧ park hyungsik as jung yihyun in happiness (2021) ✧ han hyojoo as yoon saebeom in happiness (2021) ✧ lee soohyuk as cha joo ik in doom at your service (2021) ✧ ji chang wook as yoon gyeo re in if you wish upon me (2022) ✧ choi sooyoung as seo yeon joo in if you wish upon me (2022) ✧ kwak dong yeon as jang han seo in vincenzo (2021)

tagging (no pressure ofc <3) the mutuals I've discussed dramas with this year: @lee-minhoe @sunminshine @jwooyoung @kimsmingyu

honorable mentions bc I am horrible at following directions

gunwoo & woojin (bloodhounds) • do dohee (my demon) • doom (doom at your service) • samdal (welcome to samdalri) • yongpil (welcome to samdalri) • lee yeon (tale of the nine tailed) • park junmo (the worst of evil) • jung gichul (the worst of evil) • koo ryeon (tomorrow)

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE IS AMAZING!

ITS UTTERLY FANTASTICALLY AMAZING!!

IT HAS SINGLE-HANDEDLY PULLED ME OUT OF MY YEAR LONG KDRAMA SLUMP!!!

my god! The family? The women? The story line? The chemistry? The comedy?

It’s so goddamn wholesome I want to talk about it forever.

HELLO AGAIN 🙌🏻

was patiently waiting to see your takes on ktl ep 12 because lord what an episode that was.

i paused so much during the last scene just to take multiple deep breaths to prepare myself because istg i was literally dreading the whole thing. god, those maid outfits.. i can't.

the image of the plate breaking and sarang's heartbroken eyes are still so vivid in my mind, i literally cried the moment the episode ended because did i expect conflict and angst? yes. was i prepared for that? nope. not at all.

i feel like it hurts even more because we've had episode after episode of them being madly in love and now we see won seated at the table in his house being served by sarang in a maid outfit with the daughter of the other hotel's chairman sitting right next to him and we hear his dad say he wants them to get married within the year. like wow. that's just a stab to the heart.

absolutely can't wait to see how the rest of that situation plays out, but more than anything, i'm terrified about what's going to happen to sarang for breaking a plate because the manager kept mentioning how "the dream team" never makes mistakes and it's stressing me out.

on another note, that whole scene where sarang opened up about her mom to won at the sea was so beautiful. also, won's reaction to sarang telling him what she found out about his mother and giving him her picture.. i honestly couldn't quite figure out what won was feeling in that moment and don't think he did either. the way he was just so overwhelmed with emotions and had to walk away to look at the picture and process everything.

also, my heart broke for pyeonghwa. her backstory literally made my blood boil. WHO TF DO MEN THINK THEY ARE?

on a similar note, can daeul please take chorong and leave her husband and his shitty family. the amount of patience she has to tolerate the treatment they give her is insane. ofc that's easier said than done though and the heartbreaking reality is the stigma divorce has on women which shouldn't even be there in the first place.

lastly, hwaran. she surprises me every episode because somehow she manages to get worse and worse. terrible mother, terrible sister, full of greed, absolutely heartless, manipulative, cunning.. the list goes on. now she wants sangsik on her side too and i honestly can't predict this one but i'm putting my trust in sangsik. please do not let us down. 🙏🏻

no idea what's going to happen in this week's episodes but to everyone who complained about there being barely any plot in ktl what were you watching, first of all, and i hope you're happy because the drama is drama-ing rn. 😭

love how we're both having basically the exact same thoughts about all of the sh*t that went down over the weekend and now we get to pick it apart while still having somewhat of a meltdown, sksksksk. going to put this under a read more bc i don't know how much is going to be collapsed on the dash and i can almost guarantee that this will get longer than the last two asks i answered although i will try to avoid that, my apologies

i stand by my previous statement that bringing Sa Rang there to that specific meal as part of the Dream Team when the arranged marriage was going to come up was Hwa Ran's doing bc that overlapped too f*cking well to be a coincidence. she knew what that would do to Won, not only bc of his trauma but bc of the way he defended Sa Rang from the assemblyman (when he raised his voice at her *cough*) and she really came out here and said she'd milk that for all it was worth bc he handed that extra weakness to her and f*ck. she's one of the worst people in this series but hats off to her for going for the f*cking jugular and doing it well (and endangering Sa Rang's job in the process, bc hey what happens when you're part of a team that doesn't make mistakes and then you make a mistake? nothing good i'm assuming). i especially hate how this comes after they went to visit the sea and Sa Rang opens up to Won about her mom (and tells him about his own mom in the process, but we're getting there), bc we all know how much she has wanted to work at King Hotel, how much the memories of her mother are entangled with them. working at the hotel is like the causeway in the midst of the sea, the last connection she has where Won has none, and if this plate breaking is part of the catalyst excuse for Hwa Ran to try and force her out of the company (though i doubt that will be the only reason she'll use, we need something more substantial) it will be like the tide has returned and she is back at that beach, trying to go and see her mother, crying bc she is not able to, bc no wind turbine can bear the weight of her, and that will definitely f*ck me up more than anything else has so far. (writer-nim don't do that to me pls i don't think i'd be able to make it)

but Won. his dynamic with the memory of his mother flays me open and lays me out to dry and they really dug into that with the photo, bc the first thing i thought of when i saw his face (notice that we did not see hers clearly enough, that was a strategic choice; are they trying to say that he is a reflection of her in that as well, a la 'and they will recognize all the lines of your face / in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter (son)'?) was Lucille Clifton's brilliant poem "oh antic God", seen below (screenshotted) and linked as well—

really and truly i can't pick any lines bc the whole thing applies (except for the part where she talks about her current age) and i hope you can see why, bc as much as he says he does not want to know anything about his mother i think something shifted when he took the photo from Sa Rang and he saw. Junho does so, so well here with all of the microexpressions, since that is what part of what makes the scene—there's a certain time where you think he could be angry, almost, at Sa Rang for going ahead when he told her he didn't want to but then she tells him that she does not want him to have regrets and he has to walk away from her. be careful or you'll end up like her, Hwa Ran said, unimportant and forgotten, but here is Sa Rang speaking of someone who remembers her, and she was good, and she was kind, and she was brave and beautiful and loved at least, and he doesn't know what to do with that information and we don't either. and so he steps forward, braces himself (i see this as a callback to his stance in ep 3 when he leaves the interview, bc i don't know why everything keeps coming back to that panic attack but i sincerely thought that the way things were going we would get his hands on his knees in the same way), and for a moment i looks like he is trying to say something, anything, lips parted, but there is no sound, no noise, only the single tear on his cheek, and God the camera cuts away from him—

i am trying to be very normal about this but uh. my brain is screaming 'COSMIA COSMIA COSMIA' (Joanna Newsom for the second time my beloved but this version too) interspersed with 'wish i knew / wish i knew the words to this one' and that's kind of complicating matters don't you think

as for Pyeong Hwa and Da Eul—ykw i think they deserve a little murder. they deserve to go batsh*t. just as a treat bc the men????? that they have consistently had in their lives????? no woman deserves that but especially not them. honestly i don't know who i want to go after first Pyeong Hwa's ex-boyfriend (#1 candidate for scum of the earth) or Da Eul's husband (ties for #1 candidate for scum of the earth and who also had the audacity to come out here with his ass and say she'd have bad karma come back on her bc she [rightly] complained about the invasion of privacy his family is perpetuating), but tell me when we decide on one bc i have the ammunition for it. wouldn't be surprised if that mf*cker is cheating on her too bc we did get a partial allusion to that in the earlier half of the series, albeit it could just be him choosing his work associates over his own family and not necessarily having a woman on the side. either way this sh*t needs to stop and i 100% support Da Eul taking Cho Rong and leaving. f*ck divorce stereotypes all my homies hate divorce stereotypes just make sure his ass pays that child support

and now for a bit of Hwa Ran character study to round this off (yay for me i actually followed the outline you set out in your ask asfdgjnlcisdwbkkq). as we continue to observe her and the way she interacts with her father, her half-brother, her husband (who is desperately trying to become her ex) and her son, i feel like the screenwriters are pushing the narrative that even if she is a horrible person she, too, is a victim of the system. and i get why they would do that, bc they do have a point. i touched on it briefly in the tags of this reblog, but i think there's a part of her that is doing these things in regards to the company bc she thinks she knows best. she believes that this is the way to not become irrelevant, not to stoop to the level of her father and her brother in becoming so sentimental at times they lose sight of the real goal (in her view, both times it has been bc of a woman). she puts herself out there so she can have power, since such a inbred, patriarchal society does not listen to you otherwise, and in return she is sacrificing her relationships. and even then, she still thinks that there is no other way to do this and survive. she has convinced herself of this, of so many things, that it has become a part of her, so the minute it looks like she is about to lose her control she looks for the closest thing within her grasp to regain. here, with the inheritance fight, it is the King Group and her leash on Won, and Sang Sik, bright eyed and ambitious as he is, looks like an extension of that leash to her. (after all, didn't he say he's the only one who can handle Won?) considering that Sang Sik has been by Won's side since they met, however, i don't believe he'll switch sides, but more that he'll weigh his options and play double agent in the process since they have spent basically the entire series showing us where his loyalties actually lie (and which she underestimates). tl;dr, Hwa Ran's personal arc is somewhere between Who Are You, Really? by Mikky Ekko, Spite by Vandaveer and Blood // Water by The Neighbourhood, and if they take her the way i think they're taking her (read: she spirals) then she's pretty much f*cked as a result

i am biting my nails rn with regards to the upcoming eps bc hey!!!! this threat of my OTP falling apart for fifteen seconds isn't the plot i asked for!!!!!! i don't need this kind of anxiety i decided against watching Revenant live bc of that!!!!!! just praying we get through with minimal damage that's all i can say